History:Enforcement of Councils Act, today known as municipal councils, dates back to the establishment of first legislature in Iran: The National Consultative Assembly. One of the first laws passed by that parliament was Municipality Act in 1907, thus, materializing one of the most important goals of the Constitutional Revolution. Recognizing the right of citizens to elect and be elected to manage the affairs of their cities is among their political rights. Therefore, the first historical juncture in which councils laws should be studied is when political rights of the Iranian people were realized. It was the early years of 1900s when the Constitutional Revolution became victorious and the National Consultative Assembly started to pass laws. In the course of more than 95 years which have passed since ratification of the first municipal law in our country, urban and rural councils have gone through many ups and downs. The first law pertaining to Islamic municipal councils was approved in 1982. Afterwards, that law had changed five times. The final version of it was approved in the fifth term of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) in 1996. After election of President Khatami the way was paved for holding Islamic councils elections and the first such election was held on March 8, 1999 in which people took part enthusiastically in more than 40,000 jurisdictions. Finally, about 200,000 people were elected to run municipal affairs of cities and villages as members of the Islamic city councils. The councils started their work on May 29, 1999.

Tasks:

Some duties and tasks of Islamic city councils are as follows:

1. Electing mayor for four years;

2. To identify social, cultural, educational, health, economic, and welfare shortages, needs, and insufficiencies of respective jurisdictions, formulating plans and corrective proposals as well as applied solutions in the above fields to facilitate planning by concerned officials;

3. Approving bills on levying or canceling urban duties and changing their type and amount in line with general policies of the government which will be announced by Ministry of Interior;

4. Supervising urban health affairs;

5. Passing regulations and supervising installations canals and paths in the city;

6. Overseeing implementation of plans related to development of streets, avenues, squares, green spaces, and public facilities in the city according to relevant regulations;

7. Approving names of streets, squares, avenues, alleys and neighborhoods in cities and changing those names;

8. Supervising good management of municipalities and all organizations, institutes, and companies affiliated to municipality; protecting capital, assets, as well as public and private assets of municipalities; and to supervise expenses and costs of those entities by selecting an official auditor, reporting violations to municipality, and taking necessary legal action.